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Everest 2003 tech wrap up
17:49 p.m. EST Feb 6, 2004
Last year saw the proliferation of widespread tech on Everest. There were the multiple teams attempting to do live video from the summit, the Internet Café in Base Camp, and the widespread use of handheld satphones as well as a new player to the Everest Arena, the high speed RBGAN.
Crazy storm footage for the first time
So how did everything go? Pretty darn well actually. The Adventures International team sent back some of the first video from Everest in the season featuring Camp III footage from one of the biggest storms to hit Everest many years. The moving pictures of the tent carnage really conveyed over just how devastating this storm was in a way that hasn’t ever been done before. The expedition leader, Scott Woolums, used the Contact 2.0 dispatching system and the new RBGAN to send through the video.
RBGAN, the new player
The RBGAN, which is a high-speed, data only, satellite phone saw some use last year, but expect many more teams to have it this year. Boasting speeds of 144 kbps and an average cost of 12 USD per megabyte, the RBGAN is here to stay. Contact 2.0 enabled him to send the high-quality video clip through, straight to his website without any delay or webmaster intervention.
Most popular Internet café in the world
Perhaps the project with the biggest media fanfare was the Everest Base Camp Internet Café. Don’t believe us? Do a Google search on ‘Everest internet café’ and see what you get back – pages and pages of articles. While the notion of Internet at Everest was certainly not something new, (it’s been around for quite some time) the widespread availability to the Base Camp community was. Internet was typically restricted to teams that could afford it, and others without the means had to barter or pay through the nose to send emails with their equipment.
Even some outreach to the climbers
Did it happen and did it work? It did. Come the start of the climbing season, the café was up and running, using a VSAT terminal for the high-speed Internet connection and a wireless connection to pump the signal into Base Camp from nearby Kala Patar. These guys not only provided Internet at Base Camp, but also posted AdventureWeather’s free Everest forecasts outside their tent daily. They charged 1 USD per minute of Internet use. There was even word of wireless access within Base Camp.
But was it wireless?
Did that happen? Luanne Freer, the BCMD reports that "they loaned out the PCMCIA card/modem to those paying for their service, but the catch was that you had to be within 45 meters of the internet cafe."
So yes it worked, although with a limited coverage area.
Intel catches some heat
Certainly, Intel’s television ads that depicted climbers using wireless inside their tent at a higher Everest camp were misleading. They caught quite a bit of flack for that just several months ago from the public. Wireless Internet on the mountain itself hasn’t happened since 1999, when the Everest Internet experiment sent live images from high on Everest, relaying them down the mountain by means of an 802.11b connection, and then broadcasting them to the web.
Will they be back?
So will the café be back again this year? Well, there is no official announcement as of yet, however, the original intention was to continue to do this year after year, and during the off-season use the equipment to deliver Internet to people lower down in the Khumbu valley. We’ll wait and see, but latest reports from climbers have it that the café unfortunately won't be back. Hey - those guys still have our printer we loaned them!
The Thuraya emerges
Another relatively new entry to the satellite phone scene was the Thuraya handset. While it wasn’t the first time it’d been used on Everest, last year saw it’s coming of age. It’s smaller than the Iridium and has a 9.6k data rate vs. the 2.4k of the Iridium. The Thuraya handset is at $800, almost half the price to buy compared to Iridium at $1400-1500. Folks were impressed and the Thurayas are likely to continue to increase in numbers on Everest.
Live video, the Holy Grail
Lastly we come to Holy Grail of last season’s tech achievements – live video from the summit to television audiences. Several teams were gunning for it; how did they fare? The Chinese had the biggest rig by far, running fiber optics on the mountain and driving in huge satellite trucks. The result?
The Chinese
While we don’t get Chinese television here in the states, there’s been several screenshots of the live broadcast on the Internet and it does appear they were successful. There were some rumors floating around about it just being still pictures, however, it was most likely real video. The Chinese, however, were certainly not the first – some news agencies touted. The first true broadcast all the way to television was back in 1988 with a joint Chinese/Japanese/Nepali expedition.
The Americans stifled by bureaucracy
The Americans were gunning for live summit video on their ‘Global Extremes’ Everest reality show. How did this work out? Well, they did manage to transmit the live video from the summit to Base Camp, however, the Chinese, who had already done their transmission did not allow the Americans to send through their broadcast from Base Camp. So, the show was produced live in Base Camp, transferred to tape, and then run over to Kathmandu to be broadcasted. Close, but no cigar.
When duty calls
The UK Royal Marines were planning to do live video, and their rigs were certainly prepared for it – super lightweight and compact design, tested out in the field for distance, and also weather chamber tested. Unfortunately the team’s head tech guy, responsible for the endeavor, was summoned away for the Iraqi War last minute – when duty calls…
The dark horses
The third and perhaps most silent team were the Catalans. Almost as if out of the blue, we received an email shortly after it happened, including footage from climber Serge Mingote at the summit. These guys were also the most forthcoming about their achievement – It was transmitted live from the summit to Spanish TV3 for 8 minutes of summit footage and they were the first in the world to broadcast from the radio shadow of Everest’s South Face. All the other video was attempted from the North side. These guys were one of our favorites – unlike the Americans and the Chinese, they didn’t come out and brag about it; instead the just delivered – and not with the humongous crews that the others had backing them up.
What’s in store for this season
This season will be markedly different on Everest – the attention has been shifted over to K2, who’s celebrating its 50th anniversary. While there’s no one speaking about live summit video from Everest so far, there will certainly be many, many teams doing dispatches from the expeditions. All the teams using the Contact 2.0 system last year who are back on Everest will be using the system again, along with many new guys as well. And with the ever-increasing popularity and flexibility of the RBGAN, expect to see more of the higher-quality video clips, like the ones Scott Woolums sent through last spring.
Screenshot from live Catalan summit broadcast courtesy of Spanish TV3.
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